11 characteristics of good writers

It's not "just" about being good with words.

This is my first in a series of posts written for serious writers, that is people who want to be very good at writing. These posts are based on my experience and work since first being commercially published in 1990. Please note that my main experience is in writing nonfiction, but the suggestions below apply equally to writing fiction.

Some of my books, included here to demonstrate that I know what I’m talking about

Introduction

What's the difference between good writers and bad ones? In my opinion, good writers have the following characteristics:

Perseverance

It’s easy to keep going when the ideas are flowing, and the feedback is complimentary. But a good writer will keep going even when those ideal conditions are noticeable by their absence.

They are prepared to edit ruthlessly

They are willing to follow the injunction of Arthur Quiller-Couch and “murder their darlings”, painful though it usually is.

They carry a notebook at all times

Or a device that will enable them to record their thoughts and ideas wherever they happen to be.

They maintain files of ideas and discarded drafts

You never know when an idea will suddenly come to life. I keep a file of ideas for my ‘experiments in style’ series, and I cross off the ideas as I execute them:

Note that I could simply delete them as I do them, but I think it’s useful to keep a record. I can use it as a guide for cross-referencing for a start. For example, one of the styles on my list is ‘Graphic Novel’. If I ever do that one, I’ll be sure to cross-reference it with Comic Strip. On the other hand, seeing Comic Strip in my list may remind me not to bother with the graphic novel version because they’re too similar.

I’ve had one idea on the list for absolutely ages, but not known how to go about it. This morning, I saw the whole article in my mind. All I have to do now is a bit more research and then type it up.

Another type of idea is the title. Years and years ago I had an idea for a hardboiled story called Deadly at Midnight. Very recently, that is decades after the title first came to me, I used it:

Deadly at Midnight

Inadvertently, I’ve been following in the footsteps of Raymond Chandler. He wrote down lists of similes he might want to use, and also titles, aqnd even jokes and style. He kept a notebook with sections for these categories.

I discovered this in a book called Handwritten: Remarkable people on the page.

Image kindly provided by The Bodleian

I’ll be writing a full review of in due course, but from an initial few perusals it’s absolutely fascinating, because it provides a window into various people’s thinking and, above all, editing processes. In addition to writers others, such as composers, are also included. That link takes you to the book’s page on the Bodleian website, where you will find more details.

Back to the matter in hand: unless you’re an elephant, keeping files of ideas makes a lot of sense because otherwise you’re bound to forget some of them.

Small, but not minor

An ability to recognise the difference between small things and minor ones. Oscar Wilde defined a day's work as taking out a comma in the morning, and reinserting it in the afternoon. That was a small change. But it wasn't necessarily a minor one.

The late sports writer Hugh McIlvanney once had this telephone conversation with the editor:

Editor: When will you be sending in your copy? It’s already past deadline.

HM: I’ve been having colon trouble for a couple of hours.

Editor: Oh. Have you seen a doctor?

HM: No, I mean I’m not sure whether to use a colon or a semi-colon.

As it happens, you can see this difference in plays. To take Wilde as an example again, the part of the butler Merriman in The Importance of Being Earnest is a small one, but by no means a minor one.

Think outside the self

Good writers write for the (potential) reader, not to  show off how clever, erudite and articulate they are.

Welcome feedback

They are open to legitimate criticism, by which I mean feedback on the quality of their work for its own sake, not for the sake of displaying the cleverness of the critic.

Read — a lot

Good writers read a lot about their subject or in their genre.

Read — a lot (again)

They also read a lot, or at least think a lot, about the craft of writing. Or, failing that, write a lot. Some concert pianists practise for eight hours a day, and athletes train incessantly. Why should writing be different?

Read widely

I describe myself as an eclectic reader, by which I mean I tend to read all sorts of stuff. For example, I’m not that interested in sports, but I read the sports pages at least once a week because some of the writers are superb. What I’m interested in is the craftsmanship rather than the subject matter.

For example, as I wrote in Beginnings:

Panic at United as Mourinho gets his Trump cards ready

Giles Smith Saturday November 12 2016, 12.01am, The Times

This article appeared at the end of the week in which Donald Trump had won the Presidential election, and Jose Mourinho started as Manchester United Football Club’s manager.

The world awoke this week to discover the levers of power in the hands of a man with perceived demagogic tendencies and to find significant decisions about the future resting on the whim of an acknowledged egotist who has threatened to undo everything his predecessor has put in place. Little wonder Manchester United fans are worried.

I love that because, despite the fact that the article appeared in the Sports section of The Times, and the headline clearly names Mourinho, we’ve been led to believe, or the writer has allowed us to believe, that he’s referring to Trump. So the last sentence comes as a ‘Gotcha!’ which makes you laugh and makes you want to read on, if only to discover if the new manager can really be that bad.

It’s also humorous because of the hidden hyperbole: was the world really concerned about who’s taken over as the manager at Manchester United? Most people in England, let alone the world, couldn’t have cared less!

Or take Hugh McIlvanney, who I mentioned earlier. Here’s how he described the conditions at a football match, which I quoted in the article Can AI write decent book reviews?

It was the kind of wind that stripped the flesh off your bones, then came back for the marrow.

I feel my temperature plunging just from reading that sentence.

Love writing

Good writers enjoy writing, and it shows in their work. They’re not just writing for search engine optimisation. That’s why I think that no matter how good artificial intelligence becomes at producing text, it will never be as good as a good writer. As I am fond of saying, reworking Arthur C. Clarke’s quotation about teachers: if a writer can be replaced by AI then he probably should be.

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I hope you have found this post useful, enjoyable and encouraging. If you wish to help me feed the three feline parasites who are slowly bankrupting us, save me from having to go out busking (and other people from having to hear me), and support me in my endeavours to enrich the world’s literary canon, please consider giving someone a gift subscription:

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Finally, on 8 June 2024 I’m teaching a course called Creative writing with constraints, in London, so you might wish to consider doing that: it will be a lot of fun (if you’re a masochist).